The Big Picture - Physical Media Strikes Back With Tim Simons

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Sean is joined by actor and physical media enthusiast Tim Simons to refresh their conversation on the state of Blu-rays and physical media in the world of cinema. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Tim Simons Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Danny Heifetz from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. For all your fantasy football needs, check out the Ringer Fantasy Football Show with me, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly. That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show

about physical media. We are so back! We are so back. We're so back. Tim Simons. We're so fucking back. We did it. About 14 months ago, Tim and I sat in this room and we talked about something that is very pure, precious, and dear to us and that is plastic that projects films onto your television screen, Blu-rays, 4Ks, DVDs, the whole shebang. We're back to discuss that topic once again. Tim, thanks for being here. I can. I mean this wholeheartedly. It is my pleasure. So we took a little longer than we expected to come back to this conversation.

A lot has happened in the world. A lot has happened in the entertainment industry. A lot has happened in the world of physical media since last we spoke about this. I will just start this conversation by saying to you that my crippling addiction is getting worse and I'm further down the rabbit hole. I've got so much information I want to share with you, so many recommendations, some personal anecdote. How are you feeling about this since we did this conversation? And I want to say November of 2022. Is that right? Yes.

Well, one of the things that I wanted to say, like, when we were talking about reactions, and this goes into how I'm feeling great about it. Number one, like, let's just say that. I'm feeling great about it. I remember when it was in November, because when it released, it was the week of Zach and Amanda's Christmas party. Yes. And I saw you this past year at that party. And I remember talking to CR and he said this and he swears he said this with great reverence.

But I feel like I maybe read something else. We were talking about it and he was like, ah, what a podcast. And it was withering. But I do think that part of that conversation that led up to Chris saying that was that week and the continued reaction from it has been kind of huge. Like I get people approaching me all the time to talk about physical media because of that

one podcast. I also, I don't know if this was your experience, I also get people saying that was the dorkiest thing I've ever heard two human beings talk about. I have no shame about that. I have continued my very vocal support for physical media since we had that conversation. I definitely have had people provide feedback. We did a live event for The Big Picture last week,

and we screened the movie Oppenheimer at the IMAX campus, which was so cool. Oh, my God. That's incredible. I got a chance to talk to Hoitava and Hoitama and Jennifer Lame and Ludwig Gernsen, the composer, the editor, and the cinematographer of the movie. All geniuses, all super cool people. Very fun interview.

Then we had a little reception afterwards. And there were like 100 Big Pick listeners there. And almost all of them wanted to tell me about their most recent physical media purchases. There were questions about organization. They wanted to know what were the best labels. Something is happening. Something is growing. When you said that, I wanted to do the Sammy Sosa kiss pointing to the ceiling.

My guy. But you're absolutely right. There's a writer for Variety named Todd Gilchrist lives in my neighborhood. I saw him this morning and I told him I was coming in to do this. And he was like, he actually, he wrote the article that was in Variety about how the Oppenheimer 4K and Blu-rays had sold out the first, like they had sold out and people were like, we've never seen this before. So we were really, we were out there in front of this. So a lot has transpired that has led to stories like the one that you said that Todd wrote. I think that the streaming ecosystem has gotten very complicated. There's a fear of consolidation and there's also been some cutting and some, you know, some shenanigans i would oh yeah yeah so because of that i think that people's eyes are now open to the idea that this stuff isn't going to be here forever in this digital format yeah that it's not just that a

movie goes out of license on netflix and goes to paramount plus it's that maybe it doesn't go anywhere yeah maybe you don't see it again. Even some of the services that sell digital copies of movies, there's a concern that what if one of those services closes down? Or what if they change their licensing agreement and you can't get those movies anymore? So the physical stuff, it feels like it matters more. In fact, Christopher Nolan basically said this in an interview that he gave a few months ago,

where he was like, I think you described them as evil streaming services I'm not using that verbiage that's something right Chris Nolan said um great filmmaker that he is but he was basically like buy stuff now that benefits him and the sales of the Oppenheimer 4k but still I think he is right I think that if you want to preserve something and you have passion for something there's a way to represent it by going out and buying some of this stuff. Yes. And it not only, I have like, there are a million different parts and like little subsections of my feelings about this. And yeah, sure. It benefits Christopher Nolan, but like if Martin Scorsese or Christopher Nolan talks about film preservation, that is not,

that is not coming from like a self-serving worldview. Yes, sure, it might benefit them personally, but I don't know what Christopher Nolan's bank account looks like, but I don't think that that's the thing that is going to decide whether or not he makes a mortgage payment. Agreed. I think he's doing quite well these days. And there's also a little part of me that's like, you know what? This is also a version, a distribution method of this media that we do not have to strike over. Like we have litigated from like an actors and writers side.

We have litigated the participation in that. Well, what's complicated and fascinating about that too is that, it's Matt Damon who's the one who's been on the record about this, I think most vociferously, is that the dissolution of the home entertainment market is what led to a lot of the complications over the 2007 WGA strike, the most recent strikes,

that this new economy of streaming has presented more confusion about how money should be distributed throughout the industry. But you're right, physical media, this is already in the books. We know if profits are made, and increasingly, profits are not made at probably one-twentieth the percentages that they were being made circa 1999. But the fact that that is all codified is one more reason to feel good about it now obviously like it has entered beyond a philosophical interest for me like i am it's a little bit like baseball cards now yeah and i i'm a little i'll be honest i'm a little nervous about where i'm at with with this situation i'm i'm a little bit like teetering on the brink of like black tar

heroin you know where i'm like that new label has that new film I've not seen, but I've heard is cool from one guy in this business. And so, you know, expendable income to throw out on new stuff was like, was dialed back a little bit and also didn't want to come on and promote, you know, especially during a strike, you know, promote, throw people's eyes towards truck companies or whatever. But since the strikes have ended and since sort of the industry has come back online, I have like really gotten back into it. And now it really is like, I think one great thing is that where I'm at is I think the big broad strokes are taken care of. And I am always going to be limited by space just because like I have two children and I also have a very sympathetic, uh, wife who, uh, who allows, you know, allows some space to be taken up by

this, but I, you know, I don't want to ask too much, you know what I mean? Um, so, uh, the, the, I think where I'm at is a little bit more targeted toward thinking like, okay, do I have all the films from this director that I like? Uh, like I very recently, I think with, uh, finding a copy of, uh, a copy of, um, last of the Mohicans, like I'm now, and Irari on pre-order because it feels fucking fun man if god it feels fun to hit a pre-order button i got nervous when i saw the oppenheimer 4k sold out thing and i was like oh fuck man i'm not gonna be able to find it and then realized when it showed up in the mail that week that i had oh you had that i had pre-ordered it wow so that felt good did you enjoy the film oppenheimer i loved it it's amazing it's I mean it's truly incredible yeah um I uh I am sort of I think a little bit more targeted and I also I think I have a good filter of like when I'm at a store whatever i am i am like do i care enough about this movie to have it take up the space that is in flux you know what i mean absolutely so i i'll give you a

little bit of personal history but then i want to circle back to michael man yes um i've been wanting to have a space to watch movies my entire life. The house I'm in now is the first time I've really had a proper space for myself. It's increasingly a bigger part of my work. So I have this converted garage with a very large television in it. And I, the, really the

only nice thing that I bought myself that would be considered like an elaborate expense was that I hired a guy to build shelving in this garage space. So there is custom shelving all around this garage that is strictly used for the storage of physical media. I also have a vast collection of CDs, something I never talk about, but prior to my Blu-ray addiction from 1990 through 2009, I was obsessively compiling CDs. But so anyway, all this stuff is stored in there.

And I did this three years ago. I had this all kind of designed and built. And I'm running out of space. And I'm like down to the last two shelves. Oh, really? So what I don't want to do is double up the stacks. And I've really found ways to maximize the open holes. But I'm getting to the same place that you are, which is that my collection is very strong.

I've got basically that thing you described for Michael Mann. For most of the filmmakers, I'm like, these are my core people. These are my core 25 filmmakers that I really care about. Plus lots and lots of extended collections for other filmmakers or other genres know genres but not extending beyond that what is the number i don't know what my total number is right now but i am starting to think i have to come to a stopping point and then say i buy 10 really nice things a year and that's it um and there on out and maybe i start cycling stuff out but i i don't know it's hard because this weird thing has happened which is that even in the 14 months since we talked more companies have

come along who are doing this and they're treating it like a like a boutique gemstone like the things that they're making now we've extended beyond like uh steelbook technologies yeah and now they're like what arrow is doing with like box sets on single films they're like art pieces yeah and i want to display them in a meaningful way which is silly and so now i'm like do i need to spend 55 on a true romance 4k when i already have true romance in dvd and blu-ray and as much as i love true romance if i really want to watch it, will I just pull it up on a streaming service instead of breaking out the physical media?

So it's a devil's bargain now with where to go with stuff you've already got too. I don't know if you're experiencing that at all. No, for sure. I think, well, number one, I have that True Romance era. I do too. Of course you do.

It's beautiful. Oh, it's fucking beautiful. I think that there is something to be said for i know i think we probably talked or texted about this at some point there is something to be said for the ones that have a really strong emotional attachment i think that's what i go for so like the recent black hat 4k i i was coming back to this for you yeah i want to discuss that with you so there discuss that with you. So there's that.

Also, you were not invited to the Black Hat Rewatchable, so this is your chance. This is my chance. I am, you know what? It's not, like a wound heals. You know what I mean? You go to the hospital, there's triage. The scar remains.

I was not, I did not participate in the creation or planning of that episode. So I have no apologies for you. I appreciate that. We all know there's one person that should be having apologies for me. I listened to it, by the way. It was fantastic. Movie makes no sense, Tim.

Huh? The movie makes no sense. Oh, you are 100% wrong. You're 100% wrong. So Arrow has released a cloak and dagger box, and I didn't own cloak and dagger, and that was a huge one for my childhood. So of those arrows, I think like rat, no, no.

The vinegar, I have a vinegar syndrome, rad. I have an Arrow showgirls box um there's a cloak and dagger the robocop one ones that i have this sort of like immense emotional attachment to is where i consider cycling those out but if it just comes down in a way to like to like box art then i'm like i don't need to spend 30 on i don't like as as emotionally attached as i am to mall rats if i just have a like a three dollar one that's fine i don't need to get like a fancier custom art boxed mall rats so yes i do so i literally Yes, I do. So I literally did this equation last night. So right now, this may be over by the time this episode airs,

but there's a Barnes & Noble 50% off sale for all Arrow releases going on right now. Currently? Yes, currently. You fucked me. I know, I know. You better get your wallet ready. Yeah.

So I looked at it. With Arrow and those nice boxes, I have the same relationship. If it's a movie I dig, I own all those titles you just mentioned. If it's something that I really care about, I'll replace something in the collection with a nicer version of it. But I did the exact calculus last night on Mallrats when I was looking at it. A movie that I own and love, but also don't watch and loved a lot when I was 17.

But now, what does it even mean to me? I don't know. It's also, I haven't seen it in a while, it's immensely problematic. Hugely. The entire Ben Affleck character is comically cancelled. But I did buy

the Waterworld 4K because I'm planning a massive Kevin Costner episode this year. Waterworld, I don't even really remember it, and I haven't seen it in 20 years, and it could be bad. But for my very specific freak purposes of making Kevin Costner episodes of a podcast, I can justify to myself the $25 during the sale to own a movie

that might not actually be good, but what it is is it's a part of movie history. And it's a part of movie history in a time when I was coming of age. And so there's value there to me. And I don't think Waterworld, I'm not sure if Waterworld is available in just like a traditional format from the studio. But nevertheless,

like the arrows of the world still exist. The criterions of the world still exist. But I have even started to see a few other brands and I'll talk about them maybe as we get a little later in the conversation. But the kind of undergirding a lot of this discussion is the fact that while we are getting increasingly emotionally connected to this hobby you know best buy announced in october that they're no longer selling physical media yeah i don't personally buy a lot of physical media at best buy but this

news was treated as though it was some sort of thunderclap on the industry. And it was kind of coming right around the same time as that Oppenheimer 4K story too. So there's some confusion, you know? That was the thing of this article that Todd sent me that he wrote, which was Oppenheimer sold out, but like, you know, brands are pulling, like Target and Best Buy are pulling these from their storefronts. Would you buy anything from those stores ever? I would. You got kids.

You must be in Targets all the time. Yeah, I'm in Targets all the time. I think there is, but I think what it comes down to is until the secondary market of this thing goes away because too many people listen to this podcast and too many people get into it. Like we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Yeah. Just put us on your list. That's all we ask. Yeah.

We're doing a service here. The, I think there, I'm probably not going to just like buy a full priced copy of, I don't know, like I'm trying to think of something like a movie from the last few years that I liked just fine. Um, and maybe would possibly own, but you know, like, I don't know. I would probably not buy it from there.

Yeah. I, I'm torn because, okay. So I did, I did a little research on this on, on, uh,

on Monday evening, I had plans to go join, um, our friends, Andy Greenwald, Chris Ryan, and Zach Barron to watch the Philadelphia Eagles football game. I considered texting them jokes during that and thought better of it. It was nice of you to not do that. Yeah.

I didn't go to taunt them. I was there as emotional support. We watched the game in a bar. But before we did, the bar was in Atwater Village. I went to the Best Buy in Atwater Village. Do some little reporting, little on-the-ground reporting, some shoe leather, just to see what's going on there. Capital J journalism. So I walked in with my news cap on, you know, I had the little press ticket right on the top of my hat. I had my pen and pad. Mister, mister. Sir, is it true in fact that you've removed all the racks and they had removed

all the racks? Oh, they had. Everything was gone. I don't think I quite, I haven't been in a Best Buy in a while. I don't think I quite realized what they're doing there now, which is that, you know, they've always sold appliances, but now it's kind of like kitchen home furnishings have taken up the space

of where I once could have bought a copy of James Gunn's Slither. You know what I mean? Like, why can I not buy something like that? But I can't. All that stuff is gone. And as is the kind of, like, looky-loo rack

that you'd find right outside the register where you'd be walking past and you'd be like, oh, interesting. Starship Troopers, I want that. Yoink. Like, that is gone. And I can't say that, like, ultimately it made a ton of sense that Best Buy sold this stuff. But even though

I never bought from there, I felt like a little sadness, you know? Yeah. I felt like there was a little hole in my heart walking through that store that I don't care about. And I think maybe that is like as, maybe it is more so that like, whatever, like we're absolute psychopaths about this. So we are going to find a path to it, but that maybe is more of a, this is probably not the right word for this, but like more of like a populist thing. Like that's

a way for people who don't know they're into it to be like, oh, that's cool. That's my favorite movie. I didn't know I could own it. You know i mean like they're they're not gonna be psychopaths about this so maybe it is a little bit more like that was how we got that was how we hooked them and then they go down the psychopath so so does that make you think that we're like screwed long term that like it's just a hobbyist thing now and that because there won't be that curiosity or that oh i could buy inception in 4k for 1999 while also buying a washing machine like because that's gone do you think there'll be a less long-term interest in it basically it's a big question i don't think so i mean i guess this just comes down to like the amount of people that i know that are even if they're not like vinyl in

like vinyl obsessed that would just like have a record player buy records that they like you know they have like a little bit of an album collection you know what i mean like i do feel like people will find it and i don't know maybe it just, you know, like talk to the people in your community. Like, you know, donating to your politicians is great, but talk to the people in your life about physical media. This is how Rick Caruso operates. This is why he ran. Yeah. I've been talking to people in my community.

Physical media is still huge. It still matters. I'm listening to the people of los angeles and they are 10 they are sir sir we need more physical media and i will say like to your this this popped up into my head about uh while you were talking about like the custom-built shelves and stuff like that and and 35 like 35 or 50 blurays. For anybody listening who's like, okay, well, clearly this is something that you need a lot of expendable income to do. That sick rich guys do.

Sick, yes. Mentally ill rich people. Yes. The two of the things that I wanted to- Which we are not. We're neither of those things. Neither rich nor mentally ill. Are you mentally ill?

Yeah, I'm like, I'm probably like maybe three quarters. Fair, fair. Three quarters of- I'm probably seven eighths. Everybody listening Yeah, I'm like, I probably like maybe three quarters. Fair, fair. Three quarters of each. I'm probably seven eighths. Everybody listening to the show is like, Sean has a huge problem and he won't acknowledge it. I acknowledge it.

I have a huge emotional and mental problem. Thank you. Some, I mean, like some people go to therapy and some people just run a podcast network. So one thing that I wanted to say is like, I, like, I just recently moved everything like to a new shelf and I went Ikea Billy shelves, which are, I think like 60 bucks. Are those leaners or straight up?

They're straight up. Okay. I got like the double set. So I think it was like 120 bucks for the shelves. And because they're bookshelves, they're a little bit deeper. But it fits four VHS tapes perfectly. If you lie them flat and across, it brings the Blu-rays like a half an inch in from the front oh so it's like using an old school physical media to make it look so they're not too deeply recessed into the generation supporting each other literally love it i mean like we if we have stood if we have seen far it is because we stood on the shoulders

of giants and and also a re i know i texted you at some point about this over the course of the year. A real big find for our Los Angeles region friends is CD Trader in Tarzana is incredible. They have a massive Blu-ray and 4K like used section and if you want to build up a library of classics or just there's like great movies there like i found i was really excited to find a copy of first reformed which is a movie i didn't see until this past year and immediately like spiked up in my huge one for me huge one hugely amazing movie and i found a copy of first reform there for like 5.99 like you can go in and find like really build up it's not like you know like we talked about pawn shops the last time i was gonna ask you about this what are your locales so that that is one of them yeah pawn shops in la and I think maybe just because there are too many people like us,

they can be really hit or miss and you miss a lot. I haven't had good luck at Salvation Armies or Goodwills or anything like that. But again, I went into a pawn shop when I was on vacation in Maine with the family and I found a copy of Mean Streets for $4. CDTrader and Tarzana is incredible. They always get new stuff in and it's not super expensive to start building up a library. And you can also find used Criterions, which are going to be more in the $20 range, but you don't necessarily have to go in and pay a full retail price for that. And you get to support a local business. Yes. That is all physical media.

One interesting thing that happened for me personally while we're talking about local stuff, which I'm sure most people don't care about, but they also have their own version of this, is, you know, there's a legendary video rental store in South Pasadena called Videotech. I don't know if you've ever been there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they've since moved locations. They moved the locations to Glass Hill Park. They sell used DVDs and Blu-rays. They also have, it is one of the great renting rooms that I've ever been there yeah yeah yeah but they've since moved locations they moved the locations to glass hill park they sell used dvds and blu-rays they also have it is one of the great renting rooms that i've ever encountered like it is hilariously brilliantly organized from genre to you know country to filmmaker like it is spread all over the place um very cool people working there and their used stuff is just really good and it's like it's a little more expensive than your pawn shop um maybe a little bit more expensive than your cd trader but not that much more and so once a week i'm just in there like looking to see what they have in the event that something is 1099

that would otherwise be 35 dollars which you know i don't i don't want to be spending that on stuff every week either so the used stuff is important, especially when you're in that building out the collection phase, where you're like, I need to get all the Kubrick movies. I need to get all the Michael Mann movies. I think when you get beyond that, when you get beyond like, I've got my 20 filmmakers I like, or I love samurai movies and I got all the samurai movies.

So now where do I go? I think there's like a secondary question of how do you experiment you know like for you you know the labels for the most part now you know what you like you know the people that you love to watch over and over again the films you love to watch over and over again but do you ever just like spin the roulette wheel once a year and be like i'm gonna fucking try out blank you know this is actually a good maybe a good example of this did you read uh cinema speculation of course i did okay that's honestly is probably the stupidest question i'm

gonna ask anybody not only that but i have spoken with the author about it for like five hours total yeah did i miss this did you actually did an event together yeah oh my god uh at the new beverly it was really cool that's what that is that is that is uh legitimately and quantifiably cool it was the most probably the most fun i had quote-unquote working in 2022 oh god awesome so my neighbor uh my neighbor Johnny, lives down the street. He picked up a copy of it, and then he gave it to me. We both read it. We both loved it. And I had been on a kick because his mother-in-law is an editor named Lindsay Klingman, who just had her 80th birthday. And so we're like, our families are really good friends. And so I met her and her husband, uh,

Dick Pierce. He's a director. Um, I had met them. Richard Pierce, P E A R C E. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Great. So, um, so I had been talking to both of them and I really, I was like, I, I wanted to go and like see the work that both of them had done. And I had seen a bunch of his stuff, but I was like, I want to go in and look at the stuff that Lindsay had done. And I like everybody that's on, that's listening, like go look up her IMDB. Like she's like a monster. She like, she started out by editing that Vietnam documentary Hearts and Mind yeah. Which is where she met Dick because he was running camera and she edited it.

Yes. Didn't he shoot Don't Look Back, the Penny Baker, Bob Dylan documentary? I think he did. I mean, this guy's like, this is a legend. Yeah. This guy, he shot like Woodstock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she went from Hearts and Minds. And then the next thing she did was one flew over the cuckoo's nest. She was fired off of Ali by Michael Mann. Wow. Like she's worked with everybody. And so anyway, what I was doing was I was like, I'm going to watch through she edited hair. Like I'm going to

watch through Lindsay's filmography. And as I was doing this That's a cool project. It really was. It's been sort of ongoing. Through the eyes of an editor specifically yeah and honestly like hearts and minds is a really like a it came out in 1976 and it feels like it feels uh it feels like sort of ground shifting even now so i can't imagine what the reaction to i mean i know one bet i think one best documentary and there's a very famous speech that Bert Schneider gave when it won. That is a kind of like template setting moment in the new Hollywood.

Yes. So I can't imagine what the conversation around it was then when it feels like sort of like a righteous thing now. Anyway, long story short, in this kick of like, I want to just maybe not be just picking things out of the ether. My friend, Jonathan came up with this idea. He's like, do I spin the roulette wheel? I started spinning it for that because I was like, I'm just going to, I have never seen hardcore, the George C.ott paul schrader that's right but i was just like this is something i i'm gonna like this comes pretty highly recommended from somebody i know he has problems with the ending i know you know our good buddy qt has problems with the ending as i read about but did you hear that this is also something that he's thinking about a lot of what he wrote about with schrader's movies this may or may not play a role in what he does with his next movie. With the movie?

The movie Critic, yeah. No, I haven't heard that. You might want to revisit that one in Rolling Thunder. Two movies that he focused a lot on in the book that I guess may or may not feature in the film. Oh my God, this is going to be so fucking cool. I'm so excited about this. Rolling Thunder is the guy gets his hand in the...

Okay. Yes. So like Rolling Thunder, Hardcore, my first move for all of those was to go see if they were available on physical media. And I think that this goes to a larger thought, which was like, am I really worried that I'm not going to have access to Con Air? Like kind of not. You know what I mean? Like, you know. Okay, but in its way,

Con Air could become the Rolling Thunder or Hardcore of 2047. Yes. If we don't create a universe where Con Air is cared for, restored, prized as the work of 90s action cinema that it is. It is. And passed down hand to hand to our children. Because honestly, I mean, this is more true for Rolling Thunder than it is for Hardcore. But, you know, Rolling Thunder is a borderline exploitation movie.

I mean, it's a, you know, it's like the real coming home in a body bag, like from True Romance. You know, it's like a, it's a movie about a veteran whose life is falling apart at home and who reflects like the rage and desolation of the Vietnam veteran. And then enacts like a kind of, you know, violence on the world that doesn't see or hear him the way that it needs to be seen or heard. In a weird way, Con Air is like kind of a similar story. Oh my God, I was not, I was really not expecting you to be able to connect those two things.

I mean, it's about a veteran who doesn't, is not respected in a public setting and gets into a physical altercation and goes to prison, but has a decency inside of him and needs to find vindication and reunion with his family like they're the same movie yeah so uh you couldn't plan this

how many how many hands does nick cage have in uh in con air i think he's got both hands but he maybe he takes other people's hands in con air you know what i mean i mean there's a plane crash those are usually pretty brutal that's right I think that there is a part of me that looks at like, that maybe I'm going to roll the dice and like spin the roulette wheel on like, this is a judgmental word,

but like maybe like trashier or more exploitative stuff that really does have a chance of disappearing. Yeah. And so like Joee i think is a great case of that like that movie might be one of the best movies i saw this year did you now did you just rent that did you buy a copy of that like how did you go about finding these movies i mean a

lot of it just starts with amazon and blu-ray.com is like a big thing this is going to be a larger question i think uh made a little note while we were talking because it came up because they just released like the new like recolor corrected 4K RAID. Like the RAID

that just came out. And that is like from a tech side. I'm not exactly sure. Like anyway, I haven't seen it, but you know, there's something going. I don't i haven't seen it but you know there's something going i don't want to take you off track but there's something happening right now with some of these 4k color corrections that is not good like i noticed the first time i really noticed this

was in the criterion edition of miller's crossing which is very green in the print and looks wrong it doesn't look like the movie i grew up watching now it may be the movie that they always intended to make yeah or that you know um technology can now allow for them to make but the bigger controversy around this is the 4k of all the james cameron movies yeah everyone seems very frustrated by what the new true lies looks like what the new abyss looks like i didn't go to any of the screenings of the abyss but people thought it looked great on film but then when you watch the physical media version, it doesn't look very good. So I don't, you know, that's, you're taking a risk there too, I suppose.

And I think that that is sort of something like a few, a few thoughts that come up when you're talking about that is like, uh, number one, I don't know what I'm talking about when I talk about transfers. So like finding out, uh, like going to blu-ray.com and like trying to suss out, like, is like the better transfer, like the UK version or the French version, like trying to figure out that way, how to get a copy of Joe. There is a little part of me. And maybe this is like, I don't know. i'm wondering where you are on this like i love that somebody now has the technology to make the movie that they wanted to make but you made it you made the movie then and in a way like i kind of don't care what movie you wanted it to be now it was

the movie it was and once you release it that's kind of what i want to see did you go see star wars when george lucas re oh of course edited them and added the cgi and were you mad were you happy well how did you react i think at the time i told myself i was happy like say exact and now i did the thing where like i found somebody sent me the link and somebody sent me the link to like the despecialized somebody that like went back and like put them in the original color corrections and i like better it feels better i like i burnt them on to a blu-ray and put them on the shelf because i'm a fucking psychopath i respect it i think i might still have that vhs triple box of the original trilogy yep somewhere i don't know where it is. I know exactly where mine is.

It is on, it's like sitting face down behind a bunch of Blu-rays so that they are only a half an inch from the front of a set of Billy Ikea shelves. We might have to do a screening, VHS screening. I think I had

an interesting experience recently. This hasn't aired yet, but I got to interview Vin Vendors, which was very exciting. And he was a really, really great guest on the show. And I don't want to spoil any of that conversation, but I was asking him to kind of reflect on the amazing arc of his career and the fact that he's a person who's in his 70s, and whenever someone like me encounters him,

they're like, wow, you are a legend, sir. What that must be like to be told you are a legend and maybe like how maybe his relationship to his work has changed over time because of that and i said have you looked at any of your movies recently and like change the way you've thought about them or maybe what people told you has influenced how you thought about them and he's like yes no no no no but we're restoring all my work and we're restoring i think I believe it was wings of desire. He was saying that they did this for, but he was just like the negative of that film was just all wrong.

And the version that everyone has seen is not what the movie is supposed to look like. It was never supposed to look like this. And I, me and my DP and my editor knew that it was wrong and nobody else knew. And nobody cared. And they liked the movie that it was wrong and nobody else knew and nobody cared and they liked the movie and it was fine but the version that you can see now is the version that version that was always intended and of course I respect him immensely but I was kind of like I don't know

if I want to see that like I don't know if I want it any it's not like he put Jabba the Hutt Wings of Desire you know what I mean it's not it's not that kind of a thing but it's just like a very small critical, scientific shift that changes things. I actually thought of Black Hat when we were having this conversation because, you know, in that Arrow 4K that you're talking about,

there's a recut version of the movie in an effort to make the movie flow differently. It's a significant sequence that is shifted earlier to the front of the film, and it does make the movie certainly more coherent but it probably changes your relationship to the chaos of that seeing it for the first time this sort of like the disorienting confusing like what was this guy smoking quality to the movie which it sounds like you really enjoyed which yeah i really enjoyed because it's a phenomenal film that does 10 out of 10 five stars make sense

but like i guess you know authors of their work are always going to be the owners of their work but they're also not they're also going to slip away and fall into our hands and when they slip into our hands we have our own definition of them and so part of the interesting challenge of the physical media thing is there's this desperation from both a monetary and creative perspective to recontextualize rebuild redefine what a piece of what a work of art is but also like this like wish fulfillment of creators who are like if only i had another million dollars or only had two more days or whatever it is that might come along. Like, I wonder,

will there be a Station Eleven version of this at some point, you know what I mean? Where, you know, he gets to be like, actually, it should have been just like this. Or like the prestige television is going to have its day with the Star Wars special editions too. Like, wait till David Chase

can get his hands around the Sopranos again. Like, it's going to happen. Yeah. So I'm conflicted about all of those things. I mean, there is that sort of larger sense of like once art gets put, and I understand like that somebody's going to be listening to me like, oh, fuck you, you know,

calling it art when it's a commercial enterprise or whatever. Like I understand. Okay, fine. It's art to me. It is. It absolutely is. So when it gets put out,

it sort of stops being the authors and it then becomes the audiences. And I think that the Michael Mann recutting doesn't bother me new Beverly to see a big fan of the movie sorcerer. And I think I ended up seeing it four or five times this past year. Cause I like watched it once. And then a friend of mine hadn't seen it. So we watched it together. And then three weeks later I got invited to go see it at the new Beverly. And they were playing it on like a specific kind of,

was it IBE tech? I can't remember. Some sort of tube. But like the guy did say like there's going to be a lot of... You're going to see like a lot of like red shifted scenes in this movie. And that's just because of the quality of the print that we have. I think IBE is usually more blue. Okay.

I can't remember it was i don't know tubes something i think what i like where i would fall off that if you know william fried can like may his memory be a blessing i love him if he was alive right now to be like uh the this is the only print that exists, but we have the technology now to color it the way that it was, I think I would be okay with that. Because if it is like, oh, this is because of the degradation of the actual material that it was on, it now doesn't look the way that it should. And it is all too red and washed out or orangey. and we have the ability to make it look like the other reels or whatever,

I think it'd be okay with that. And I think when it comes to Michael Mann, I just like, I'm just somebody who like really kind of loves the theatrical cut of Miami Vice because he just throws you into the club. You know what I mean? Like, he's just like,

oh, we're just in the club. And when I started it, when I was watching it for the first time, I was like, did they forget to play scenes before this? Because I don't know what's happening. And I think, didn't he recut it like the Blu-ray version has scenes before that? Yes, I think so.

I think there's a delineation between the two things. Like, one is about the way the stories are structured and what isn't in the movie that they're putting into the movie. And then the other thing is the quality of what you're seeing. And now we're in this era, basically starting roughly 15 to 20 years ago, where the shift to digital comes in. And so this kind of emotional cavalcade of we have to restore film prints. We have to make, you know, all the work that Martin Scorsese does, that Paul Thomas Anderson does, that Steven Spielberg does with the Film Foundation,

making sure that great movies from 1920 or 1940 or 1960 can be seen. The digital age is not really going to have that problem in the same way. That level of degradation is not quite the same. But I think that the knock-on of that will be because it's so much easier and cheaper to shoot on film or on digital rather that you're going to see more special editions that are like here's the kingdom of heaven you know four hour

cut like we're going to have like the four hour cut of like dude where's my car and like i i do think that there's like a huge opportunity to kind of like maximize all the shit you wanted to see, but they cut out of the movie. You know, like the Apatow, Apatowian expansion of, you know,

the, the, the X-rated cut of bros, you know, telling dick jokes. Yeah. And that will extend into prestige movies.

Like, I wonder how some of this stuff will be impacted by that. Like, the power of the dog going to the Criterion Collection right away is interesting, but I wonder what the Criterion collection version of that movie would be 20

years from now, you know, when they're, they have more to share, you know, they might be less willing to share with less time gone by. They want to be like, this is the sacred version of the film that we have right now.

And I also, I'm like very hypocritical about this because there are parts of me that think that, that checks on power is too dramatic of a thing to say but like that writers and editors working with directors ultimately end up being only or or not only but uh benefit in that uh sometimes a little less is more and like you sometimes you need other eyes on it but at the same time i sit here and like whenever that four and a half hour cut of napoleon comes out i'm like i'm gonna watch it and i'm gonna be so fucking stoked to see it you know what i mean i do

how about the rest of your cinema speculation viewing experience well we finished all the chapter heads and oh and this is so like last night um we we lost our way a little bit after we had the guide of the chapter heads and then we started going into like some of the stuff that was mentioned frequently or or referenced frequently um and then we kind of lost our way and we were just kind of getting away from like the grimy trashiness and we were like okay well like we uh wonderful movie but we really understood we had hit bottom when we were like i don't know you want to watch big night you know what i mean like fantastic movie but it doesn't have anything to do with like the sort of grimy shit that we were watching. So we got back on track by watching The Devils, which I loved reading your letterboxd review after because I went in being like, oh, because this has been banned, because all I've ever

heard is about how it got banned, this is just going to be like trash, fun trash. And within five minutes, I paused it to be like, is this the best movie I've ever seen? It is an amazing film. It is an unusual one in that it really did feel lost for a while. At least for me, it was very elusive to find it. And now it is just fully available

on the Criterion channel. This is Ken Russell's, I think, 1977. Yes. Sort of like uh demonic excoriation of is it's france or italy i can't remember is it france i think it's france france france um and its relationship to the church and it's this kind of like psychotic opera um of horror psychosis and beautiful fun crazy movie way over the top beautifully like every single shot that he throws in in the first 20 minutes is a masterwork so that really got us back on track

my friend my friend johnny when vanessa redgrave showed up he shouted redgra grave in the kobe voice it's like red grave uh and then last night uh we watched uh uh possession like 1981 possession like that sam neill movie so we're kind of back on track but like possession is a movie that like is it my most favorite movie of like the devils is something i'm going to search out and find a copy of it wherever i have to get it from possession is one of those ones where i will look to add that to a library because when i like went on whatever just watch it was like oh it's only shutter i can't rent this anywhere it's only shutter so that feels like in the world of, I should be making sure there's a copy of this around.

So Possession is a good one. Possession, a very similar kind of film to The Devils in that for some periods of time, it was harder to see. Kind of an arthouse classic. Its reputation has grown a lot in the last 10 years as kind of one of the great freak out movies. A precursor to a lot of different kinds of movies, you know, kind of like consonant with David Cronenberg, people like that. Um, but also, but also like a insane story about the

dissolution of a marriage, but I'm glad you brought it up because, um, you know, I saw possession, like I said, probably 10 years ago, I've actually written about it a couple of times. I really like it a lot. But one of the better buys that I had in 2023 was that there is an Andre Zalosky box set that Eureka makes. But Possession's not in it. It's three of his other best known movies, but they're still relatively obscure films. The third part of the night, The Devil and On the Silver Globe, which is one of the craziest science fiction movies ever made.

And that's the thing where like, I hadn't seen those movies. I didn't know when I would get a chance to see them at a rep screening. They're not on like Amazon. You know what I mean? Maybe they are now, but at the time they weren't.

And the only way I could find to see them in this way, looking good, treated right, was I had to wait for a sale to come along for it to dip down under $50. And when it did, I went to whatever, Diabolic DVD or whatever site I used to buy it. And I zoomed in and watched all the movies,

loved them, and felt like I'd made a good purchase. Like my artistic experience had been improved because I spent the money on this thing. Now, not everybody can take chances like that. Not everybody even cares to think about like the guy, what other movies did the guy who make Possession makes? They may not even think about that person at all. I mean, they might watch Possession and be like, I don't care what other movies he made. Yes, I don't want to hear about any other movies he's ever made.

But he gets so under your skin in that movie that I kind of wanted to try to go back to that place. So that's the thing is like they're portals. Like The Devils is a portal to other Ken Russell movies. Like, you know, right now you can watch like The Boyfriend

or Altered States or all of these other films that he's made. He made in the 70s and 80s that are all fascinating and in different genres but all have this very specific sprinkling of

Russellian insanity that is really, it's like the most fun part of this, I think. And honestly, like going and doing that made me get excited about watching more Ken Russell movies. But you, this came up the last, when we did this last time, that you are, I think my preference is I like individual sort of like video store titles. And you, from the conversations we've had, you don't mind a box set. If it's done well. Okay. There's some companies that do it really well. And there's some that do a really shitty job.

I don't like a bare bones box. Like if I'm going to buy like the Zalosky box set, there's a booklet. There's writing inside. There's special features. There's stuff that, especially when I'm taking a chance on something with some films I haven't seen, I really want there to be a lot of context inside the box.

That's really what I'm looking. I'm looking for education along with the entertainment. How does that affect your, uh, it not, uh, your sorting organization. Yeah.

I was going to ask you about yours too. I mean, you've already given me so much with your VHS bounding that is so helpful to understand. So, my organization is insane. Like,

I really need to just redo it because right now, and if I said this on my, 14 months ago, I apologize, but it's by director,

but it's not alphabetical. So, it started out as like pride of place, you know, it's by director, but it's not alphabetical. So it started out as like pride of place. It's like your Altmans and your Coen brothers and your Spike Lees and your Jim Jarmishes. All of my guys, they were all at the top. And then we go from the top down and we start adding. And then slowly but surely, we get down to Adam McKay. And then even further, we get to Martin Brest. And then even further, we get, you know, then we say like, there's almost like there was

like a hierarchical thing happening, but now it's just a mess. Like now it's, I started at the wrong place in the room and now it's like winding around and it's like a 270. It's not quite 360 in the room. So it's really messy. So then when I started acquiring more than one Andre Zalosky movie, where does that go? It just goes wherever there's open space. And I've got a little bit of chaos. So if I really need to find something that isn't obvious, if I need to find something that isn't Quentin Tarantino or Steven Soderbergh, it's going to take me a minute. So I need a reset. I know that for a while, the Blank Check Boys,. That I know that like for a while, uh,

the blank check boys, I think they were doing directors for a while. And they just mentioned that when we were having like a conversation, like very early on, um, uh, they are definitely listening right now. Oh,

they absolutely are. You know, who else is listening? Another person that like, as I was first getting into this, like I remember tweeting something like, Hey, does anybody I know on here like Blu-rays or collect those? And Carrie Coon responded like,

you should talk to Tracy about this. And I met Tracy Letts because we were in a movie together, an indie movie together and have been friends since then and my man is like he if you ever have a chance to talk to him about this so i think he may have like even moved like he may have like moved out of the city to have more space and like obviously for like you know he has they have kids and you know whatever they want more space for the kids. But like, this is just- Was 12% of it to have a cool room to put all your physical media? Yeah, physical media. Because he's like- So this is a true story.

I was always going to do this episode with you. And I told you, in fact, when I last saw you, I was like, I would never do it without you. We're brothers for life. The physical media podcast. But are you saying maybe you're trying to be polyamorous? And are we going to like- Not only that, butrie coon tweeted a photo did you see this no of all of the films that they watched on physical media this year and it was it

was you know it was tracy and carrie set or whatever all their recent purchases and it was it was for the real heads like it was hardcore it was stuff that it's like all international region free yep all the great labels quality shit all over the spectrum of a genre and so i i did i did reach out to one of our uh colleagues at spotify and i said you know tim is going to do this episode with me we're always going to do it but if if carrie and tracy want to come on and talk they we there's an open invitation for them to be in part two of this discussion i will just reach out to them for part two. Because I remember we were texting at one point. I think he was like, I think he told me at one point,

he was like, earlier today, I had to tell Carrie, just so you know, there was a Kino Lorber. Kino Lorber? Kino Lorber, yeah. They had a sale. So just don't be alarmed when they show up. I also participated in that sale and bought 14 things

because they were all $8.99 and I was like, how can I not do this? I need to own, you know, Robert Redford films from 1973. It's just something that I need to have all of the films that he made.

I mean, like, so I know that, like, I don't think that Griffin and David have the size of collection that Tracy does, but, like, I would be really interested to hear what Tracy's it like i don't think that the that griffin and david have the size of collection that that uh that tracy does but like i would be really interested to hear what tracy's organizational style is because i knew immediately that i was like i'm never going to be able to go by director

i the only thing that i'm thinking about changing up i'm all alphabetical but what that takes away i think and this is maybe something that we talked about on the last one, is like the stuff that's on your parents' bookshelf, but the fact that it's there makes it important. And so as a kid, you have to try to figure, you have to do the math to puzzle it together of why is that important? Yeah. This is a huge thing for me. I don't, I don't, if you did say that already and we're repeating ourselves, I apologize, but like seeing the book needful things on my parents' bookshelf, I think like led me down a path, like a path of taste that I otherwise would not have gotten. And I don't think my parents really even care about Stephen King, but they had that book. They had that book. So it meant enough for it to be there. And so there is a little part of me that like when my kids start to wander in and like really take a gander, I want them to see all the Martin Scorsese movies together and I want them to see all the Michael Mann movies together.

I kind of want to group them so that they don't have to be like, okay, now I have to look up who this person was. They're just all there. You know what I mean? I do. I do. I wanted like sort of kind of subset directors, but I might just have to limit it to when I have all of the shit that they have. So the first box set that my daughter ever fell in love with, she's never seen any of the films.

She has no idea what's inside of them. But because of the design of the Bud Bedeker Indicator box set, the Renown Westerns, which Criterion has since made their own Bud Bedeker Renown Westerns box set. But Indicator made one like eight years ago, and it's a beautiful box. It's just three discs. It's five discs, but it's like five movies in three boxes.

And it's so colorful, and it's these beautiful movies on three in three boxes and it's so colorful and it's these beautiful images of randolph scott randolph scott like you know painted like uh like a like a like a monet and alice was just like this is my favorite toy this is and whenever i come down to dad's office like this is the toy i play with it's just this box set of blu-rays and so in a way and i didn't do this i didn't like put this in her hands. She just wandered over, grabbed it. It was just like, this is, this is like my Elmo right now. And so I wonder if over time, like, is this how you build a relationship to something? Even if you don't fully understand what it is, what you're saying, like resonates deeply with me, you know?

So if they, you know, if your kids wander over and they're just like, goodfellas matters to dad. And so I have to, I have to try. Now they might reject it because it matters to you too that's certainly in play but it's amazing how you're just like emotionally drawn to these things that you see and don't quite understand yeah i one thing that i want to throw out and this goes back to like reactions i don't i had a lot of people reach out to me about something that we missed okay and and this um is something that i've been talking a lot about recently especially when it when it came to maestro because i was able to see i was able to see a screening of maestro in a theater isn't didn't doesn't it work so much better in that it works it's so much better in a theater because of the sound. And I think the last thing that I've really understood about film is how score works and how it matters.

And I would never have been able to tell you why a score doesn't work or does. And I don't even know if I could do that now, but at least I'm on a path of doing that. And I'm sure every sound mixer or every sound editor that is listening to this is going to be like, of course you guys don't fucking think about sound because we're the last fucking guys that anybody thinks about. But a lot of people brought up that one of the biggest things about like one of the Laura, one of the best things about physical media is lossless sound. And so I had a lot of questions about sound setup and I was always just like, I don't know my TV speakers. And so even though I haven't, again, because, uh, the industry imploded, I did not buy like a sound bar or anything. Like I ha I want to shout that out that that is also like a benefit

of lossless sound when it comes to physical media rather than streaming and to then move forward to like maybe pay attention to how that sound is delivered a little bit more. That was something that came up a lot after the first one. The same way that there's a lot of unfortunate visual compression in a lot of streaming services, there's a lot of audio compression that is happening on the streaming services. And so you're just losing something. It's just a fact of the way that we get a lot of our media right now. And it can be improved if you experience it in a different way.

For somebody who doesn't really care about that sort of thing, you don't have to buy a $500 soundbar. But yeah, if you do, if you want to watch Apocalypse Now, you don't want to watch it with your TV speakers on a streaming service like it's just not going to be the artistic intent and it's not going to be the best possible

version of the experience some for some people they're not gonna it's not gonna matter you know some people watch football games on illegal links on their laptops and they feel fine about it everybody is different and i do think you know, there are exceptions to this too. I told this story last year, but I don't know if you had a chance to see the film Skinnamarink. I did. Yeah. But I saw it the first time I saw it. I saw it at home on my laptop on a link by myself in the dark.

And I was like, this is one of the scariest movies I've seen in years. I can't believe what a great experiment this is in the test of patience and the eeriness of of black and then i saw it in a movie theater and i was like this is a very silly movie that doesn't really work very well and it's because people were like chatting and snickering and walking out and not buying into the experience and some you know usually horror is great in a theater with people but a certain kind of horror doesn't necessarily work that way so format timing where and how you see things is always a part of the equation but if you're like a person who's like i want to be in a pod tube alone with like a beer helmet on full of gatorade and just watch movies all day you should get a sound

bar you should get a nice television if you can afford to do so you should buy the beautiful 4ks from the boutique distributors like there is a way to kind of maximize the emotional and physical experience that you're having with the art that you care about yes and i will say like i i was of course like somebody that went to go see uh killers of the flower moon in the theater opening weekend and the experience was incredible and i just re-watched it this week because it came out on apple tv and again we talked about this last time like the act of putting in a disc makes it something different because i swear to god i i loved it when i first saw it i it only grew in my estimation the second time i saw it it's fucking fantastic but i was at home and I was just like,

oh, I'll throw this on. I'll press the button that gives me Killers of the Flower Moon. And at some point I was like, okay, I'm just going to pause this and finish up tomorrow because I had somehow started watching a car detailing Instagram reel during Killers of the Flower Moon. That's a nightmare. That's a nightmare. Give it some weight. It during Killers of the Flower Moon. Like, that's a nightmare. Yeah. That's a nightmare. Give it some weight. It's Killers of the Flower Moon.

I mean, furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, Apple TV Plus original films are not producing physical media. I don't think that any of these movies that they've made since they started making movies in 2019 can be purchased in America. I googled this the other day after I finished it the second time. I did say like, okay, when is I am going to pre-order this? I want to physically own this. And of course, there is not a release date but i don't know and maybe this is just internet chatter but most people and i maybe this is hopeful or wishful thinking on my part or like it's martin scorsese at some point there will be like a

criterion partnership like they did with the the irish. Well, the thing is that Netflix and Amazon have been willing participants in licensing their films to boutique distributors like Criterion. You can find a lot of good editions of really good, you know, Marriage Story is available. Okja is available.

You know, there are a number of... Is Sound of Metal an Amazon movie? Sound of Metal is a Criterion. I think Time, the documentary, is, um, in a criterion edition. I don't think they've done it. I don't think Apple has done it. And Apple has a very different perspective on a lot of this stuff. You know, this is a very, um, this unbroken circuitry is the whole notion of the Apple

company. They do amazing stuff. I'm very happy that they bankrolled kills the of the Flower Moon. But I'd like to own it as well to round out my wonderful collection of Martin Scorsese films, which I've worked very hard to compile over the years. But there's no way to know.

And I completely agree with you that there is a, especially like we're getting older, man, like into the distractions and our attention spans and how we're spending our days and that confusing thing where, you know, you're an actor, you are, you care about and think about the state of the art.

Obviously I do this all day long. I talk about it all the time, but it started out, I assume for you. And of course it did for me as like my leisure time. This is how I had fun. This is like something I got emotionally interested in and just wanted to spend my free time on. So when you collide those two things, you're a little more cynical about those things, a little more cavalier about how you're treating them over time. And I'm trying to be the most respectful version of somebody who likes movies.

But like, yeah, sometimes you got a text message and you look at it while you're watching a movie. You know what I mean? You're not like going to hell because of that. But it's just hard when you're, especially when you're like holding the streaming service remote. Like when you're like, I'm just flicking around, I'm clicking from app to app and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my time. You are inherently not in the moment. So unless you put your phone in a black bag and drop it at the bottom of the ocean for

three hours, you're going to get distracted. This is why I preach going to the movies, obviously. But even in the format of putting in a disc, I find that I'm able to focus more. Like if I pull something off the shelf and pop it in, I think I'm actually more invested than if I just press a button. There's intent. There's intent there. There's that thing. I remember a, I remember like an old, like a tech director when I was doing carpentry in chicago was like just familiarity breeds contempt and like the more like and he was saying that as a warning of like you're around table saws all the time you're going to get familiar and you're going to be contemptuous of their danger so don't do that or you'll die treat it as if you're seeing it for the first time every time you see it okay and and i guess that is that thing of like the more familiar we become

with the process of watching movies then become I don't know contempt maybe is too strong of a word but it's just like oh here's this thing

that I do again rather than being like no I'm going to lock in because this is the thing that I love. Just cavalier with it I think is what happens. Do you have any goals

for this year? What are your goals for this year? What a generous question. is what happens. Do you have any goals for this year? What are your goals for this year? What a generous question. I think I actually need to tighten the collection a little bit. I think there are some things in it that I don't need. And so what's the best way to donate

is something I'm thinking about. I was thinking about like maybe running a contest on the show and just giving all of my like remainder to someone. I've also doubles of things and you know sometimes i get things for free and i want to be able to give those things away to somebody who really gives a shit to our valued listeners would you like a used copy of way of the gun i would never give away the work of christopher mcquarrie um but but i think actually prioritizing quality over quantity is really the goal at this point. Like the things I have felt best about, and even when I was kind of preparing for this and writing down things that I actually spent my money on that I like, it's things that feel special. Like I bought the 4K hard box of Messiah of Evil.

Have you ever seen this film? It is widely considered the best kind of unknown horror movie. It's a cult film from 1974. It's written and directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who are pretty well-known people. They were in the Lucas orbit in the 70s. They have a screenwriting credit on American Graffiti. They are probably best known for working on Howard the Duck,

the movie Howard the Duck. Much maligned Marvel Comics adaptation, circa 1987, starring Lea Thompson. Messiah of Evil has nothing to do with Howard the Duck. It could not be further from anything. Although I would really like for you to be able to draw those two films together in some way like you did Con Air and Trackdown. Well, I can do it. I don't know if listeners give a fuck about me finding the convergence point, but it's it's a beautiful strange deeply unnerving movie that features three remarkable horror movie set pieces clearly hugely influential on the 80s films that were going to

come after it but another film that was like pretty hard to see and you would have to go to a rep screening like you could catch it at the new beverly like every five years basically um but this company that i had not heard of until early last year called radiance films put the movie out in the 4k hardbox i first got hip to them because i was wandering around fop in england are you familiar with fop no it's a it's a it's a video blu-ray t-shirt poster store in london that is just just it's like it's a crack den for us. Like it is so dangerous to walk into a place like that. How many selfies did you have to take there? Uh, I was unrecognized. It was wonderful. Um, I think maybe because it was Europe, but, uh, I think, I think I spent $300

there, which was like, I, it was really, it was dangerous and bad, but I was like, I'm on, I'm on a work vacation, so I'm just going to treat myself. Um, but i bought miami blues there which is a really really good alec baldwin jennifer jason lee movie and i'd never heard of this label before and i they have since they do this interesting thing where like they issue basically like one or two american or english productions a year and then everything else is wild genre fair from japan from germany like a lot of stuff i've never heard of and you know i've heard of a lot of stuff I've never heard of. And, you know,

I've heard of a lot of stuff. So if you're putting out something in a beautiful edition with all of these special features that I've never heard of every movie, I'm like, what the fuck could this be? So I feel like I want to get all that stuff. I mostly stick to the stuff that I've always been looking for. Like they put out a great edition of thieves like us,

the Altman movie, um, ocean stakes, a kind of lost Altman movie. There's an edition of it. But the Messiah of Evil one is like one of the coolest purchases I've ever made. It's a beautiful edition.

The movie looks amazing. The features are good. And that's just like a new thing that crossed my path. So how do I spend more time on the radiances of the world and less time on like the Warner Arch archive edition of a movie that I kind of like from 1994. Yes. That I'll watch once and then never think about ever again.

And then kind of maybe don't even really like it, but it just kind of felt completionist. Yes. Yes. Yes. What about you? What are your goals? I think I,

they're kind of the same. It is sort of just to like really focus on the things that have like real core emotional value and the good news is is that as somebody who like worked in a video store and spent i like you know growing up in maine we had to drive like 45 minutes to get to indie movie theaters. I have dedicated a lot of my life to seeking these things out. And they still continue to have the emotional weight. The good news is that there is a lot of stuff that I assign emotional weight to.

But I think it would be those two things. Really focus in on things that have emotional weight and to make sure that I am being completionist about the directors and filmmakers that I really care about. Even if that means the expense of something that is like, oh, I really like that movie, but I got to complete this other thing first.

I think it's that. Is there someone on your list who you're like this is the year when i go whole hog on director blank oh god i mean like ken uh ken russell might be up there like after i mean this is very new uh but that is there's not a lot of great additions of his movies. Um, women in love is in the criterion collection. Okay.

Uh, I think that's the only one. And he made a, he made a lot of films. He made a lot of, um, uh, like melodramatic,

stylish, operatic recreations of composers lives. Like Mahler. There's like a movie like Ken Russell movie called Mahler shout out my girl Tar yeah it's honestly yes like it is kind of a Tar precursor um he's made a bunch of those uh but you guys you guys had to have made the joke about how mad Tar must have been about Bernstein doing the Mahler in the church, right? Yes, of course. Fury. Or inspired. I mean, moved deeply by his work. And what he brought to her, what he taught Lydia, you know?

Oh, you know what? To that end, I think this might be a year of Todd Fields for me. After watching May-December, something I think clicked with me. Oh, Todd Haynes you're saying. Oh, Todd Haynes. Who did saying. Oh, Todd Haynes. Who did I say? Todd Fields. Yeah.

So that is somebody who I am, I think, I've seen, like, I saw Safe and I've like kind of jumped in and out. But like with those two movies, like as bookends, I am realizing that there's a lot of stuff in the middle I didn't know. And I'm going to be doing a deep dive on him. So Todd is one of my favorite guests on the show. He's been on the pod four times. Awesome.

I just listened to the interview that you had with he and… Oh, Julianne Moore. And Julianne Moore. It was great. They were really cool. You're really good at your job, by the way. Oh, thanks. You did a wonderful welcome to them and you hit them with

a question right away. You valued their time. You were just like, hell yeah, man, I'm going to get you right into a good question. Great work. I admired that. Thank you. That's very sweet of you. It's kind of the opposite of what I've done with you here, which is like waste your time and kind of dilly-dally around certain questions. I want everybody to know you did offer to value my time. And I was like, my man, waste it. I got nowhere to know you did offer to value my time. And I was like, my man, waste it. I got nowhere to be

if you talk about plastic. I've been looking forward to this for a year. Todd Haynes, there's some good stuff. There's, I'm trying to think, he's got at least

one other movie in the Criterion collection at least to look at. Is it? Far From Heaven is on Kino, I think. Okay.

Velvet Underground is in the Criterion collection. Have you seen that? The documentary he made about the Velvet Underground? It was a COVID thing. Actually, that's the one Apple movie that has a physical release. I'm so glad we're talking about this. We've got killers coming. If Velvet Underground is out there, we've got killers coming. That is wonderful to see. I think from a technical standpoint i think maybe goal for the year now that we actually work in an industry that is uh back online i do think uh like some upgrades some upgrades to sound and some upgrades to picture are in the future that had not happened and i've been wanting to happen for a while but so i'd say that's a goal too so just like higher quality additions yeah yeah i Yeah. I think that makes sense. With some like real thought into like,

Matt, one thing that, God damn, man, you have no idea the response that this got. I was driving around the neighborhood and somebody was like, Max Minghella is really into physical media. He's like a VHS guy. I like saw him and walking his dog

and we just pointed at one another. We've never met and we just pointed at one another. We've never, we've never met and we just pointed at one another. And, and like two weeks later, he was like showing me around his office. Like he was like pointing out all his VHSs and talking about like a projector that he had just gotten. And he was like, this is the jam. Like, so I gotta, I gotta do some research on that. I, I've been waiting for the moment to strike to ask Max to come on the show, but I don't want to, I got to find the right moment. I don't know when that moment is going to be, but it'll be sometime soon. But yeah, he's a member of the team.

Yes. He's on the physical media team. We are, God, we're going to have Carrie and Tracy in here. We got to make room. There's going to be a lot of like, what do they call it when you're like a emotionally supportive polyamory? What is it called? What's the word for that?

If I said I knew what it was, I feel like that would reveal too much about my life. Ethical non-monogamy. Wow. Ethical non-monogamy. So this is your call though. I mean, you are my partner in this. You feel like the unethical non-monogamous person saying, I thought you wanted this. No, I want this to just be the two of us. But if you feel like it'll nurture our relationship. I want you to participate in the decision-making. Okay. So first of all, the fact that you have a relationship with Tracy, wild times, wild times.

That means you are absolutely joining me in that discussion. There's no way I would do it without you. Okay, cool. Secondly, we're in this for life. This is not polyamory. It is a kind of a marriage with the occasional fling, but you're there. No one's being cucked. This is straight up. This is consenting adults. It is a kind of a marriage with the occasional fling, but you're there, you know,

no one's being cucked. This is just, this is straight up. This is consenting adults pursuing hobbies. You know, there's no, uh, I feel good.

Anything else you want to say? Anything else you want to share? Anything else you've, anything you bought or you've just been like, I fucking nailed it with this one. Oh, um, Oh,

you know what? I mean, like I try not to get like too big into the uh to like we talked about like different covers and stuff like that i will say it feels good to get like the steelbook mizuyakis yeah like that feels good to see all of those guys together i'm so i don't own those um and i'm just waiting for when i decide to do it with my daughter and i don't yeah it's like it's probably coming totoro will be coming soon you know like we will get there um but i have not i've never made that purchase in part because actually they

got added to max right around when covid started yeah and i was like okay so i got him if i need him but now as we see the shifting sands of entertainment it's time to get him uh when max specifically yeah um the set out on the side of my mouth um the uh that yeah our kids are different ages and like totoro was huge uh and then and then we started moving into the ones that might be a little bit scarier. What played well? Spirited Away, the first time we watched it, I think is like a top five family moment for us. It's incredible.

And just last weekend, they requested it. Yeah, like we started a Papa Movie Night thing. I can't remember if it was- You told me about this. Yes, so that has continued. And I said, it's going to be a Papa movie night. And I think because they wanted some agency, they, like, said, okay, well, what if we chose the Papa movie? And they were like, we want to watch Spirited Away.

But, like, Kiki's gets a lot of play. And we all went out. We had, like, a big, like, neighborhood group of kids and adults that went out to see Boy and the Heron. Nice. Yeah, like, they are. Could they click with it? It's a little challenging, I think. neighborhood group of kids and adults that went out to see boy in the hair and nice yeah like they are could they click with it it's a little it's a little challenging i think i think they clicked with it enough okay i i don't i mean this is not subbed right dub yeah there were like some young we like some young kids like some second third graders were there so we definitely had

to go see dubbed i will say and this seems crazy to say I don't think it made as much sense to them as Spirited Away yeah a classic linear movie well it is by the standards of the boy in the heron though it's way more it's easier to follow that's really interesting did you see the thing um where Leo and Marty had a conversation for Letterboxd did you see this at all uh I saw I did not I didn't see it but I saw I know that it exists in the first minute you know dicaprio was talking about how scorsese has seen every movie ever you know all the way up to like 1982 and how he's recommended dozens of films to dicaprio over the years but he was like but you know i did put you on to miyazaki and specifically spirited away and then scorsese is like you did you introduced me to that film, which is a wonderful movie. And I was like, wow, Leo. And then I learned that Miyazaki is one of the critical influences on DiCaprio becoming such an aggressive environmental activist because of the themes of all of those Miyazaki movies,

which are all about like the degradation of the planet and all this other stuff. So Leo right there with us. Oh my God. We got, now we got to get Leo in here. You got any pull with him? Is he in the neighborhood? Have you guys ever pointed at each other while driving? Well, no, I've never pointed at Leo while driving. I did work the what to expect when you're expecting premiere party as a cater waiter. And he was there.

What? He was there. He wasn't part of the move. But that was like a weirdly, incredibly well attended. Like Tobey Maguire was there. Leo was there. What? He was there. He wasn't part of the movie, but that was like a weirdly, incredibly well attended, like, Tobey Maguire was there. Leo was there. The whole crew.

The whole crew. Was Lucas Haas there? I'm assuming he was. David Blaine? David, I, was David Blaine part of the boss? He was,

yeah. Wow. Okay. I didn't see David there. Okay. He and I are on the same page. Jay Ferguson? Who else?

I mean, there's a whole slew. Jay had to be there. Yeah, of course. I think, yeah, that's the only situation in which I have witnessed Leonardo DiCaprio

with my own eyes. So maybe he'll remember me from that. He definitely won't and he won't remember me from when I met him, but I met him once and he was the fucking man.

I was like, wow, the vibes are emanating so strongly. There's a reason you are you. Yeah. You got it. And there's very few people that actually got it the way he got it. Man, he's you are you. Yeah. You got it. And there's very few people that actually got it

the way he got it. Man, he's really fucking good. I think it's an underappreciated performance in Killers of the Flower Moon. You know, this is probably gonna come out after the Oscar nominations

come out, but I feel like they're gonna fucking snub him and then we're gonna look back and be like, come on, man. Like, what are we doing? There's a moment

where he's like trying to act like he's smooth when the murders come up and it's just like what if you were the dumbest man trying to pretend you didn't know what where somebody was talking about so good it's so good and and then like and like that's a funny version of it but watch and same reaction the second time through as I had the first time. You can't, like, the work that he does convincing you as an audience that he does love her truly and has somehow separated his brain from the love that he feels for her and also the horrible things that he's doing to her family and then ultimately to her. It's a really brilliant performance.

It's also one of those things where, you know, I don't think that movie is going to win best picture, but it's an incredible act of producing for him and Scorsese to refurbish the movie the way that they did. That they could have made the movie, they could have made the thriller, they could have made the two and a half hour fbi movie and that he was looking for a new challenge he was looking for a different way to kind of de-center that character in some ways and he i think takes on a part that like he's too pretty for that part and too old for that part and still you believe it you're still inside of it like i still was i wasn't with him because he's so evil and stupid yeah but in by the same token you're right you

believe that he loves her and is still kind of poisoning her at the same time there is this profound paradox inside of this story that really makes it so as as powerful as it is so i'm with you man he's he's awesome and he loves the environment and loves miyazaki so he's a bro for life and he'll be on the pod soon yeah Yeah, well, stay tuned. He'll be next week. Coming up, our interview with Leonardo DiCaprio about Ponyo. I mean,

honestly, you might do it if we told him it was about that. Tim, you're not only just an acclaimed actor, but a podcaster as well.

Like, where else can the world find you? Oh, that's awesome, man. You're really good at your job.

Thank you. You can find me on television and films. But Matt Walsh and I have been doing like a Veep rewatch podcast that we started doing during the pandemic. And then during the strikes, we pivoted to we are a rewatch of our own rewatch podcast

where we invite guests on to rewatch our rewatch and then use that as a jumping off point um and so that's on like all things comedy you find wherever podcasts are you know what i mean nice i mean like imagine you're listening to somebody being good at a podcast and then like divide it by like 65 and like that's us we've really found a good sweet spot i know for a fact as a listener that that is not true. Tim, thank you, man.

It's my pleasure. So good to see you. Thank you. I want to thank Blu-rays for being fucking awesome. Yeah. It's like the Niecy Nash moment. I want to thank me. I want to thank Blu-rays.

I don't know how they're going to say you're welcome. They will say it by just being there for me at all times. You know, everyone could leave me. You know, CR could leave me. Amanda could leave me. My family could leave could leave me. Amanda could leave me. My family could leave me. I'll always have my plastic. I would buy your family and Amanda leaving you before CR.

And where is Amanda? This seems right up her alley. I know. She's actually right around the corner. So you can say hello to her once we wrap up here. I also want to say thank you to Bobby Wagner, who's not actually here with us right now, but is producing this episode of the podcast. And later this week,

I don't know what we're doing on the show. Stay tuned. Probably something fun. Thanks, Tim. Protein, boys.